Tea Party Movement

One powerful niche product.

(1) 2 million people watched the first episode of her show, Real American Stories. That's about the same number who normally watch On the Record with Greta van Susteren, which Palin preempted.

(2) Going Rogue has sold 2.2 million copies.

(3) Palin will be paid a reported $1 million for eight episodes of "Sarah Palin's Alaska," a travelogue / documentary, on TLC.

(4) Palin's appearance on Oprah last fall to promote Going Rogue drew that show's highest ratings in two years.

(5) Palin has 1.5 million Facebook friends.

When Palin emerged on the scene in August 2008, she spoke as an authentic voice of non-coastal, upper-middle-class cultural conservatism. It was believable when she said, in her speech to the 2008 RNC, that she wasn't much different from your average hockey mom. Not anymore. In the years since, Palin's become something different -- a global celebrity who fuses politics and entertainment in new and startling and occasionally discomfiting ways. She's also become incredibly rich. But, as her personal wealth has increased, the number of people who think she is qualified to be president has decreased. The Palin brand is more and more powerful, but for a smaller group of people.

Critics will criticize. Democrats will attack. But Palin may have found her niche as the cult figure who mobilizes conservatives and conservative-leaning independents to the barricades. And as she's said, she doesn't need an office to progress this movement.

Michael Walzer on the Democratic dilemma.

The election of Barack Obama was supposed to usher in a New New Deal. James Carville gushed that Democrats would rule for 40 years. But Obama has had great difficulty enacting his agenda, mainly because the public is opposed to it. Health care reform is in trouble and cap and trade is dead. The stimulus blew a trillion dollar hole in the budget and the economy still shed 4 million jobs in 2009.

Why hasn't Obama "pivoted" to jobs, like the White House said he would do? Because he understands that he's done what he can -- if all the stimulus did was save the jobs of state and municipal government employees, then $15 billion in temporary, targeted payroll tax exemptions will not spur recovery. After the pivot, Obama would have nothing to do but cheerlead and wait until the economy recovered on its own (which it seems already to be slowly doing). At least health care reform gives him something to talk about.